No Dominion The Walker Papers - By CE Murphy Page 0,39
knew one story that fit that kinda pain. I dragged my eyes to the front of the oncoming madness, whispering words I knew were true: “And there before them rides a pale horse. Its rider’s name is Death, and Hell doth follow close behind.”
CHAPTER SIX
Brigid’s army scattered. Couldn’t say I blamed ‘em, but the Hunt held its ground while the Master came bearing down on us. Cernunnos said, “He is not,” so quiet I had ta look at him. He said, “He is not your death on a pale horse, old man, not the way you mean as you say it now. He is no devil as your young faith would have him be, nor are they angels who ride with him. Broken spirits, perhaps, and lost, but there was no War in Heaven fought and lost for the love of your god. He is no more death on a pale horse than I am, and perhaps less.”
“Yeah? Then what the hell is he?”
“A devourer, perhaps.” Cernunnos was still holding the Morrígan up, an’ his attention was all for the riders in the sky. “The devourer, perhaps—”
I muttered, “I like that,” under my breath. Devourer sounded like something that might take a bite outta me, but that sat better than the idea of him being my lord and master.
Cernunnos kept talking. I shut up and listened, ‘cause even with the amazing crazy life I’d led the last year, I didn’t often get to hear a god wax philosophical. “—for he has tasted gods and they have failed before him. He is an ending to the souls he takes, swallowing their essence so it feeds only himself, and gives nothing back to the boundless universe.”
“Ain’t that kinda what death is?”
Cernunnos looked at me, green fire bright in his eyes. “After all you have seen at Joanne’s side, Master Muldoon, do you truly believe that all I offer to those who ride with me is an eternal nothingness? That any faith which sends a guide, be it a rider or a reaper or a ferryman, to walk a soul through the veil, has nothing to offer on the other side?”
I guessed my face said it all, ‘cause a sly grin curled one corner of Horns’s mouth before he nodded toward the oncoming rider. “Let us face the Devourer together, Master Muldoon, and—”
“Give him a taste of his own medicine?”
“Send him mewling back to his caverns like a whipped dog,” the god agreed. An eager growl rumbled through the Hunt, men an’ hounds alike. I changed my grip on Jo’s sword, getting ready to use it again. Cernunnos’s stallion stomped a couple times an’ the whole damned Hunt took to the skies, ready to meet the Devourer on his own turf. I barked a laugh, surprised even though I shouldn’t have been, and bent low over Imelda’s neck to keep the wind from tearing tears from my eyes. When we were good and high, high enough for Cernunnos to be sure he’d gotten the Devourer’s attention, he shook the Morrígan off his sword.
Except insteada falling, she rose into the sky an’ came back down at us, hands clawed like she was one of her own ravens. Blood was turning brown on her armor already, and ran in a purple streak down her blue robes, but she wasn’t half as dead as I figured she oughta be. Cernunnos laughed, so I guessed it wasn’t a surprise ta him, but me, I wished she’d stayed dead. Especially as she was comin’ after me, even though Horns had been the one to stick a sword through her. ‘course, I’d distracted her so he could do it, and—
—and she didn’t have a sword of her own anymore, having dropped it on the battlefield when she got stuck. Jo’s rapier had a four-foot reach. The Morrígan came at me, an’ I stood in Imelda’s stirrups and thrust.
The rapier flared as it smashed into the same hole Cernunnos had made. A bright flash of silver shot up her body and connected to the necklace she wore. Outlined it in blue, so I could see real clear that it was the same one Joanne wore, silver links with a quartered cross sittin’ in the hollow of her throat.
Blue splashed into her skin and lit her up from inside, movie-like, so her bones shone through for a split second. All of sudden I saw Joanne between me an’ the Morrígan Her eyes were wide and scared as she yelled, “Gary!” but